To Life
by mnemosyne23
Summary: Following the events in the Department of Mysteries in "Order of the Phoenix," Hermione pays Ron a visit in his sickroom, only to discover the Ron she's known is lost in the mind of a madman. Can she help bring him back? RHr


**TITLE:** To Life  
**AUTHOR:** Mnemosyne 

**Disclaimer:** All things related to "Harry Potter," including characters, settings and events, are the property of JK Rowling, and God bless her for them. This is just some harmless fun. :-D  
**SUMMARY:** Following the events in the Department of Mysteries in "OotP," Hermione pays Ron a visit in his sickroom, only to discover the Ron she's always known is lost in the mind of a madman. Can she help bring him back?  
**RATING:** PG-13  
**SPOILERS:** For "Order of the Phoenix"  
**PAIRING:** Ron/Hermione, of course! :-D  
**NOTES:**  
I really wanted to see a little more of Ron and Hermione in the end of "Order of the Phoenix," not to mention the rest of the group. They'd all suffered horrendously at the Ministry of Magic, and I really wanted to see the ramifications of the events that took place there played out in more detail. But honestly, JK Rowling had so much great Harry stuff to work out, I don't blame her for skimping a bit on everybody else. ;) This is my interpretation of one night, two days after the attack at the Ministry. Please read and enjoy!

* * *

_"Now I will tell you what I've done for you:   
Fifty thousand tears I've cried.   
Screaming, deceiving and bleeding for you,   
And you still won't hear me…" _

-Evanescence  
"Going Under" 

They'd told her not to go, but she went anyway. 

It was storming outside - great peals of noisy thunder and vivid bolts of purple lightning. Perfect weather for the walking dead. The centuries-old oak of the Hogwarts corridors loomed above Hermione's head as she stumbled along, pressing her hands against the wall to keep herself upright. A few portraits grumbled as she passed her palms over their painted faces, but she ignored them, focusing solely on her goal of reaching the last door on the right before she fell over with exhaustion. 

It hurt to breathe. _Hurt_ didn't describe it. It agonized to breathe; it tore at her lungs to breathe; it filled her chest with poison needles and slashed her ribs with filet knives. The angry red scar across her chest throbbed with every beat of her heart. Madame Pomfrey had told her time and again that she was lucky her heart was still beating at all. "If Dolohov had been able to speak, Miss Granger…" Much tongue-clucking and wringing of hands would follow, and then the older woman would order Hermione to another death sentence of never-ending bed rest. It was enough to drive Hermione mad. 

Right now, she was beginning to remember that Madame Pomfrey knew a lot more about the healing arts than she did, and perhaps a bit of extra bed rest wasn't REALLY such a bad thing. If it meant her chest would stop burning like a coal furnace, she was willing to consider it. But not right now. It was late, and she was in the halls when she should have been in the hospital wing, but they wouldn't let her budge from bed during the day. She HAD to go at night. It was unforgivable that she'd waited two days before making the trip as it was. 

They were keeping him in a private room just off the hospital wing, away from the other patients and out of the main traffic areas of the school's regular student body. Professor McGonagall claimed this was so he could rest undisturbed, but Hermione had the sickly suspicion that precisely the opposite was true. She'd caught brief snatches of conversation over the past two days, even in her early delirium, and what she'd heard had been dominated by words like _raving_, _frantic_, and _nightmares_. 

There was no doubt in her mind they were talking about Ron. 

They should never have talked so close to her, or they should have made sure she was out cold before they said anything about where he was in the building. It wasn't hard to deduce where they were keeping him, from the few clues she'd overheard. Last door on the right, down this neverending corridor lined with portraits of long-dead figures of history. 

When she finally reached the heavy wooden door, she collapsed against it, panting. Her nightdress felt scratchy and uncomfortable. The exertion of the trip had made her sweat, and now the thin cotton was clinging to her body like a suffocating exoskeleton. Perhaps she should have waited another day… 

No. Ron was one of her best friends. They'd lived through too much together - literally, survived too much - for her to put off his welfare just because she felt under the weather. 

She took a few deep breaths and tried to ignore the searing pain in her chest. Then she gripped the heavy brass doorknob, turned, and pushed.

* * *

The door swung open into utter darkness. She couldn't see the room beyond the threshold, but she could feel it, and it felt claustrophobic. Small and uncomfortable and forgotten, like a closet that had been converted to a bedroom. The air was close and hot, and rolled over her like a humid curtain. 

Another bolt of lightning flared outside, illuminating the room through its one narrow window, and Hermione jumped at its intrusion. Her eyes made out a rumpled bed and a chest of drawers, but nothing more. No sign of life. Perhaps she had the wrong room. 

"Ron?" She stepped gingerly over the threshold, supporting herself against the doorjamb as thunder shook the oak beneath her hand. "Ron, are you in here?" 

Steeling herself, she pushed away from the doorframe and took a tentative step deeper into the room. "I'm sorry it took me so long to come," she said quietly, holding her arms out in front of her to guard against the darkness. "They wouldn't let me leave the hospital wing. Everyone's been watching me like a hawk. But I'm here now. Where are you?" 

Another bolt of lightning made her gasp and cover her heart, which in turn made her wince and pull her hand away quickly. Her heartbeat sped up, making her barely-healed scar pulse painfully. 

**BANG!**

She froze. That wasn't thunder. 

Turning very, VERY slowly, she faced the door. It was closed. Since she hadn't closed it, and there was no air moving in this place to do it for her, she had to assume someone else had slammed it shut. 

She swallowed. "Ron?" she asked, ashamed to hear her voice shaking. 

The room shook as a fresh peal of thunder broke over the school. As it subsided, she became aware that someone was laughing. A soft, incessant chuckle that mingled with the drumming of the rain on the windowpane, coming from the dark corner behind the door. 

"Hahahaha…" 

Hermione's eyes were slowly accustoming themselves to the dark, and she could make out an outline now; the figure of a person sitting in the corner of the room, arms stretched out over his knees, staring straight ahead at the window. She took a step towards him. "Ron…" 

"I wonder if he hears thunder," Ron said dazedly, then laughed again. "Hahaha… Get it? Lightning and thunder. I wonder if that scar makes little men with hammers pound against the inside of his skull." A bolt of lightning flashed outside again, illuminating his face and its rigor-mortis smile. He laughed harder. "BOOM!" 

Hermione swallowed again and sank to her knees next to him. "Ron, I think you should be in bed," she said gently. "I'm sure Madame Pomfrey or one of the nurses will be along to check on you soon, and they'll be very angry if you're not in bed." 

He laughed again, that same dreamy cackle. "Hahaha…haha… No one in bed but the dead," he sing-songed, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the window. "No one in bed but the dead…" Then, he turned that disquieting gaze toward her and locked his eyes with hers. 

"Bad little girls are out of bed," he whispered, with a voice like snakeskin. "A pretty face so full of dread. She can't see the path ahead, and doesn't know which way to tread." He grinned, a rakish smile that made him no less menacing. "See how blue's the blood she shed? But the weasel's blood is ruby red." 

He threw his head back and howled with laughter, pounding his feet on the floor. Hermione winced back from the volume, and stared at him with alarmed eyes. She'd assumed he'd be in bad shape; perhaps mumbling in a dazed stupor. But she hadn't expected this. 

He was stark raving mad. 

Her gaze was drawn to his arms, which were bare to the shoulder. The remnants of old bandages dangled in loose coils around both forearms, as if he'd unrolled them to see what was underneath, but hadn't bothered to finish the job. Another flash of lightning showed her that his arms were covered in red, bloody welts that she knew must cover most of his body. Harry had explained to her about the brains' attack, and their strange, terrifying tentacles of pure thought. Her brow furrowed with concern as she reached toward him. 

He intercepted her hand before she could touch him. "Don't touch," he warned, squeezing her fingers painfully. "You might catch something." 

"Ron, let me go," Hermione said, trying to keep her voice calm as she fought to free her hand. 

"Uh-uh," he said, sounding far too lucid for the piercing intensity of his eyes. "Time to go back to bed, little girl." And without another word, he swooped her up in his arms and stood up as though she weighed no more than a feather. 

Hermione cried out with shock, then pain as the movement tore at the fresh wound on her chest. "Ron, put me dow-" she managed to gasp, but didn't get to finish as he unceremoniously dropped her on his unkempt bed, knocking her breath away. 

When she'd regained her senses, she bit her lip to keep from crying out. Ron loomed over her, his face inches from her own. His breath was hot even against the hot air of the room. There was no vindictiveness in his eyes; just morbid curiosity. 

"I've never seen a dead girl before," he muttered, his lips almost grazing her cheek. 

"I'm not dead, Ron," Hermione whispered, forcing her body to hold still despite her urge to curl up in a ball against the pain. 

"Yes you are." 

"Why do you say that?" 

He didn't answer, but she felt him sink down heavily on the bed beside her, his face not moving from its close study of her features. "I was attacked by brains, you know," he said, as if it were a normal conversation and he weren't being as menacing as hell. "It was awful. Like being brutalized by big slimy Shi Tzus. You can laugh if you like. I do. It helps. Hahahaha…" 

Hermione risked a movement and raised a hand to touch his chest. "Ron, please," she murmured. "This hurts…" 

He frowned. "Dead girls don't hurt. It's in the rulebook." 

"I'm not dead, Ron, I told you that." 

"Yes you are." 

"No I'm not." 

"You are." 

"I'm not! Ron!" she exclaimed in distraction. "What's wrong? Why are you acting like this? Why do you think I'm dead? I'm right here, don't you see? I'm talking to you. I'm touching you." She pressed her palm harder against his chest, to make him notice the pressure. "If I were a ghost, I wouldn't be able to touch you, right? So I'm not dead." 

Confusion dawned in Ron's eyes. He pulled back slowly, his eyes never straying from hers. "This is Hell, isn't it?" 

Hermione bit her lip, understanding coming slowly. "No, Ron," she murmured, letting her fingers slide down his chest so she could take his hand. "This isn't Hell. It's hot enough, but it's not Hell. You're at Hogwarts." She let go of his hand and tentatively reached up to touch his cheek. "You're alive, and you're safe." 

He stared at her for a moment, then threw back his head and let out a loud bark of laughter. 

"Safe!" he exclaimed, jumping up off the bed and making an extremely balletic turn on his toes, ending up facing her with his arms outstretched. "Safe, says the dead girl with the big brown eyes! Don't you get it, dead girl? Everybody DIES!" 

He began to laugh again, spinning around the room in a macabre dance, the bandages that dangled from his arms making him look like a mummy risen from the grave. 

"Stop it!" Hermione shrieked, terrified by his wildly aberrant behavior. "Ron, please!" Tears burned in her eyes and choked her throat, and she blinked to clear them away. "Why can't you just stop!" 

He did. Stopped right beside the bed, looming over her like Nosferatu. "The spell to kill a person silently is _Morium Incapacitado_," he whispered, as if sharing a special secret. Kneeling next to the bed, he snatched up her hands and pulled them under his chin. "You can whisper it from a hundred yards away, and they fall over dead, like a tree in a forest. It's more forbidden than _Avada Kedavra_." He giggled wildly. 

Hermione swallowed down her revulsion. "Ron…" 

"Do you want to know more? You're dead, so sure you do." Tugging on her hands, he rose up a little higher on his knees so he could be eye to eye with her. "There's a tree that grows in Brazil," he whispered, a twinkle in his eye, "deep in the rainforest, where no one ever goes but spider monkeys. And if you nibble on the leaf of this tree, you die." He giggled hysterically for a second, then recovered himself enough to continue. "You don't get drowsy, you don't get sick. You just die. Poof! Out like a broken lantern. But the best part is…" He looked from side to side, as if ensuring no one was listening, then leaned in closer to whisper into her ear. 

"The best part is, YOUR BODY DISAPPEARS! And no one ever finds you again!" He started laughing again, burying his face in her lap as he let out his hysterics. 

Hermione didn't know what to say, or what to do. She'd read enough books about insanity to know it when she saw it, but she didn't know the first thing about how to handle a person who was oozing madness like a leaky cauldron. 

"Ron, why are you talking about this?" she finally managed to ask, her voice cracking a little. 

"Don't you get it, Hermione!" He raised his head and grinned at her; a wild, manic grin like the Cheshire Cat in a catnip factory. "That's all they think about! All day long!" 

She frowned. "They?" she questioned. "What they? Who are _they_, Ron?" 

He rolled his eyes. "The BRAINS, of course," he explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 

"The brains." 

"The slimy little Shelties, yes." 

"They think about death curses and poisonous trees?" 

He rolled his eyes again, in such a patently Ron way that for a moment she wondered if his sanity had come back, at least for an instant. "Haven't you ever wondered what it's all for, Hermione?" he asked, staring up into her eyes with fevered focus. 

"What what's all for, Ron?" She felt like she was swimming against a current that wouldn't let her move forward, and kept dragging her back. 

"LIFE, Hermione. The meaning of it, the reasons for it, the things that happen when it's not there anymore. Don't you ever WONDER?" 

"Of course I do. Everybody does." 

He squeezed her hands so tightly, she winced, then gasped when he moved in so close, their noses nearly touched. 

"So do they," he hissed. "All the time." 

It took a moment for that to sink in, then a wave of nausea pulsed through Hermione's body, and she shuddered. 

"All day long," he continued, slowly moving up beside her on the bed. She kept her eyes firmly planted on the moth-eaten rug beneath their feet as he whispered in her ear. "It's what they do. It's their existence. Little lumps of philosophical gray matter, thinking, thinking, all day long, about what makes us live like we do. And - this is most important - WHAT MAKES US DIE." 

Hermione closed her eyes and swallowed down her bile. 

"The dying is what fascinates them," Ron kept on, obviously enjoying telling her this story. "You see, there's only so many ways to create a life, but there are OH so many ways to end it." He laid a hand on the small of her back, making her jump, and slowly walked his fingers up her spine with a series of little taps. "And each new way," _tap_, "is a little more creative," _tap_, "and a little more extensive," _tap_, "than the last." _tap, tap, tap._ "It intrigues them. I mean, why wouldn't it, right? They swim around in a crummy tank of scummy green water all day. I suppose they have to get their kicks somehow." He giggled, and began to massage the back of her neck. 

"To them, we're all dead bags of skin," he whispered, his lips in her hair, and she gasped at the closeness. "We're just a bunch of little hourglasses slowly ticking down to our last grain of sand. That's why they attacked me, you know. So they could give it a go before it was too late and I snuffed it naturally." 

She frowned and opened her eyes, shaking off her stupor to look at him. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Are you saying they… attacked you to see… what it would be like to kill?" 

He grinned at her again. "Come on, Hermione," he prodded, rubbing behind her ear with his thumb. "You're the little scientist. You know the difference between observation and experimentation, right? I hope so, because I'm no good at definitions." He laughed a little and held up his arm for her to see his fresh, raw wounds. "I was their first subject. And I got to be their first failure." 

Hermione stared at his arm, then slowly reached up to catch his wrist in her small hand. "That's terrible, Ron," she murmured, moving her eyes from his forearm to his face. "I'm sorry you went through that." 

"You should be dead, you know." 

The sentence was so abrupt, she blinked. "What?" 

He nodded to her chest. "That." Unceremoniously, he reached down, grabbed the neck of her nightdress and tugged it down, revealing the top portion of her scar. 

"Ron!" she exclaimed, smacking his hand away and pulling her nightgown up tightly around her neck. The movement made the wound sting, and she bit her lip to hold back a groan. 

He didn't seem to notice her discomfort. "I know the spell that did that to you. _Cadaverus Cesura_. It's a cutting curse. It cuts your body in two. Swish! Right down the middle, like a stick of butter under a carving knife. The fire cauterizes all the blood vessels, though, so you live for a minute or two after it's been performed, until the blood that was left in your heart runs out and stops pumping. Th-thump, th-thump…" His eyes were riveted to her chest, as though he was staring at the scar through her thin cotton gown. 

"The wizard who did it to you must have been rubbish," he murmured, trancelike. "He barely even broke the skin." 

Hermione had listened to him describe the curse with sick curiosity. Madame Pomfrey had never let on that the consequences could have been so dire. But something about the way he said that last sentence broke a straw inside of her, and her face hardened. 

"Ronald Weasley, how DARE YOU!" she shrieked, flailing out and smacking him across the back of the head. He blinked and backed away a little, surprised. "How DARE you talk about it like that! As if you were reading a textbook, and I was just some…some… ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE!" Tears of wounded anger spilled down her cheeks. "I'm your FRIEND, don't you remember that? Don't you remember ME!" 

He'd been watching her with a shocked expression during her outburst, but now he threw up his arms, knocking her hands away, and leapt up from the bed. "I can't HELP IT!" he bellowed, stumbling backward from the bed and collapsing against the wall, hands in his hair. "It's all I see! Over and over, like some sick picture book! Those BLOODY things… They did this to me! They put these things inside my head, made me see these things, and I don't WANT them anymore!" He raised his head, and Hermione's heart lurched when she saw tears streaming down his face. "I don't WANT THEM, Hermione! But they won't STOP!" 

He started to crumple to the floor, then seemed to think better of it and started tearing at the last vestiges of the dressings that dangled from his arms. "Get them AWAY!" he roared, tearing at the fresh scabs on his arms in his effort to remove the offending bandages. "Get them OFF me!" 

"Ron, stop it!" Hermione exclaimed, jumping up from the bed and ignoring the stabbing pain this caused in her torso. She ran to him and grabbed his arms, trying her best to still his wild motions. She felt fresh blood under her palms, but forced herself not to flinch. "You have to calm down, Ron," she soothed, pressing him against the wall and keeping his arms firmly pinned between their stomachs. "You'll hurt yourself more if you keep going on like this. And I wouldn't like that at all." 

He stared at her with hopeless eyes, and for a moment she thought she saw a bit of the old Ron - her Ron - staring back at her from behind those green irises. "I'm afraid to close my eyes, Hermione," he whispered, voice shaking. "Everytime I do, I see something new." 

"Try not to think about it, Ron," she murmured, knowing it was hollow advice. "Focus on something happier. Can you do that?" 

He whimpered. "Like what?" 

"I don't know." She bit her lip. "How about Quidditch?" 

He shook his head. 

"Summer holidays? They're almost here." 

Another shake. 

"Think, Ron. What's the nicest thing you can imagine?" She gave him an encouraging smile. 

He stared at her for a minute. 

Then, without a word of warning, he swooped in and kissed her. 

Hermione went rigid. This… had not been what she meant. She was thinking more along the lines of fluffy bunnies and bright-eyed puppies with wagging tails. That sort of thing. 

Though, she had to admit, this certainly felt good… 

Unwittingly, she felt her muscles start to loosen. Her eyes, which had widened in shock at the touch of his lips, began to drift slowly shut as his mouth moved gently over hers. Gingerly she let go of his wrists and moved her hands up to rest lightly on his shoulders, her thumbs tracing along his jaw line while her fingertips were tickled by the fringe of his auburn hair. 

After what couldn't have been more than a minute - but which felt like hours to Hermione's tingling lips - Ron drew away. It took all her effort not to pull him back. As it was, she had to lean against him to keep from falling over; her knees had turned to jelly. 

"Well?" she asked self-consciously once she'd regained her breath. Her head was still spinning. "Do you feel… better?" 

"Mm-hmm." He was watching her with eerily calm eyes, made all the more unusual by the fact that he'd been raving just minutes before. 

"Well, good." She cleared her throat, trying in vain to regain her composure. "Do you think you could sleep a little now?" 

He nodded a little, and let her take his hand to lead him to the bed. Hermione settled him down amongst the blankets and set about tucking him in comfortably. She tried to be as matronly as possible, to resist giving in to the base impulse to have at it and kiss HIM this time. The tingling in her lips still hadn't subsided, and her heart was pounding so hard, it was making her chest throb uncontrollably. 

"All set?" she asked, giving him a kind smile and patting his hand. 

He nodded, then grabbed her hand as she started to stand. 

"Stay," he said. 

Hermione blushed. "Ron, I… I don't think that would be entirely appropriate. I mean, if Madame Pomfrey saw me here…" She trailed off as his thumb rubbed gentle circles on the back of her hand. It was hypnotizing. 

"Please," he whispered. 

She bit her lip. It WASN'T appropriate, and she knew it. Madame Pomfrey would surely throw a fit if she found the pair of them snuggling up in this humid room, not to mention Professor McGonagall's reaction when she found her Gryffindor prefects in _flagrante delecto._ Though honestly, neither of them was in any state for shenanigans like that. And there was still a vacant, lost look in Ron's eyes, that convinced Hermione he was not quite himself yet. Madame Pomfrey would have to cast a memory charm on him, to wipe clean the horrors that had been implanted on his mind by the brains' attack. Someday soon, when he was a little stronger. 

Which meant, in a few days, he wouldn't remember any of this. 

Hermione sighed heavily. He finally gets up the gumption to kiss me, and they're going to wipe his memory of the whole thing,she thought wearily. Five years down, two more to go.

But the terror in his eyes was overpowering. She couldn't leave him alone; not when he'd laid out his fears to her on such a naked platter. If he was going to forget in a few days anyway, than there was no reason to leave now. Besides, she didn't think she could make the journey back to her sickbed even if she tried. If Madame Pomfrey was going to find her anywhere, she preferred it be here rather than sprawled out on the floor halfway back to the hospital wing. 

So after much deliberation, she nodded. "Okay," she murmured, smiling again and brushing her fingers over his cheek. "I'll stay." 

The relief that washed over his face was heartbreaking. She watched as he closed his eyes and snuggled down in the pillows. She stayed sitting as long as she could bear it, then gave up and laid down - on top of the blankets - beside him. The pain in her ribs eased, and she closed her eyes. 

A few seconds later, she felt warm lips brush hers in a faint kiss. Her eyes opened dreamily, and she saw Ron watching her. 

"For sweet dreams," he murmured, grazing her lips with his fingertips. 

She smiled at him, and mused wryly that it was somehow fitting that the first time she ever got to kiss a boy, it would have to be when he was stark raving bonkers. Though looking at those eyes now, she had to wonder if he was really so far 'round the bend as he'd seemed earlier… 

"Sweet dreams, Ron," she whispered, touching his cheek, then passing her hand over his eyes to close them. His lashes fluttered against her palm, but he obeyed. "Sleep now." 

He nodded, slid closer to her so that his hand rested comfortably on her hip, and quickly drifted off to sleep. 

Hermione watched him for a few minutes longer, until the warmth of the room and the melodic sound of his breathing made the weight of her eyelids too heavy to bear. As they drifted closed, she thought about what Ron had told her; about the brains and their obsession with death. _..there's only so many ways to create a life, but there are OH so many ways to end it._

She shook her head languorously, rubbing her cheek against the pillow as she did so, reveling in the last remaining tingles on her lips. What the brains didn't understand, she decided, was that while death could be conjured in innumerable combinations, there were far more beautiful ways in the world to bring a person back to life. 

**THE END**


End file.
